Team effort saves two Labs and their rescuer

In BAY TOWNSHIP, Port Clinton this week, Joe Andrews’ two black Labrador Retrievers, a male named Smoky and a female named Tar, fell through the ice on the Portage River.

They were saved with the help of a neighbour in a canoe, but the canoe became stuck once the dogs were pulled from the water. The Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office and the Coast Guard were called to the scene. The man, dogs and canoe were soon safely on the air boat used for ice rescues and transported to shore, according to authorities.

The neighbor was identified by a sheriff’s deputy as Scott Cline of Custer, Ohio.

Andrews said the neighbor saw the dogs in the water and responded by taking his canoe onto the ice. The man used a “pike pole” to push the craft over the ice.

“His canoe fell through the ice” once the dogs got in the craft, Andrews said of the neighbor. “Luckily it didn’t fall through the ice on the way out, because the dogs would have panicked.”

Andrews said Smoky was exhausted from trying to climb onto the ice, but Tar was enjoying a cool swim when they were rescued.

He and another man had tried to rescue the dogs themselves in his 14-foot aluminum boat, but they were unable to negotiate the craft. Other men who were working in the area helped pull the boat to shore.

The recent snowy weather played a role in the incident. “I got a dog run that holds them in. Well, not when a big old snow drift blows into the run,” Andrews said. “There was a ramp of snow, so they could walk right over the ramp and get out.”

The dog owner said he had shoveled some of the snow from the run, but Smoky still found a way to get out of the pen. He said he let Tar out of the run so she could go for a ride in his truck, but she ran after the other dog.

“I go around the back of the house, and there’s two black heads bobbing out of the water,” Andrews said.

After the rescue, the animals were not upset by the incident. “They came up out of the ice like nothing happened,” Andrews said Wednesday night. “They’re being punished. They’re in the garage and can’t get out,” he said with a laugh.

“It had to be godsend, because everything worked.”

Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Jim Haney said the office received the call at 12:33 p.m. The sheriff’s office and the Coast Guard worked together well, he said.

“We got the call somewhere in the mix there, and we got out there and kind of met him on the ice,” said Petty Officer Bryan Kaseman of the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Marblehead.

The man and the dogs were not seriously injured in the incident. “Everybody was cold but okay,” he said.

Sheriff Robert Bratton said Cline will not receive a warning for a ladder racks ice rescue, since he was “trying to do a good thing” when he became stuck.

“Trying to rescue the dog doesn’t apply,” the sheriff said. “It was a happy ending.”